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brainiac
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I tried out a 7D yesterday and it looks great in all of the documented ways. Great high iso for a crop camera, nicer to hold and grip than a 5D2, and all the features looked great. I held up the viewfinder next to my 5D2's, and found that there is only a very slightly larger view in the 5D2 finder. It seems truer, but since the 7D can't even take a manual focus screen, I don't think anybody's going to notice that. That's 99% of the camera dealt with, now for the gripes:
- the focus screen certainly doesn't allow accurate manual focussing of f2 and brighter lenses. Could even be a problem for lenses like the 300 f2.8. This is a deal breaker for me. I need to be able to have a good chance of off-centre manual focussing at f1.4, or what's the point of having spent all that money on fancy L glass. Or even having a prism at all?
- the combined liveview/video button is a usability disaster. The camera should have been configurable so that the raw/jpeg button starts liveview, and the liveview/video button starts video recording, WHETHER OR NOT THE LIVEVIEW IS ALREADY ACTIVE. Perhaps I didn't find an existing way of fixing this, but I looked at all the custom function settings. As it stands, if you want to shoot video you have to press the video/liveview button twice. That's right, twice. The first press starts liveview, and the second starts video recording. You may well also have to switch it from liveview mode to video mode. 3 steps, count them, and the first one is modal - you may have to do it, you may not, but you will always have to check whether you need to do it. As someone who uses these combined stills and video cameras to shoot... combined stills and video, this is a disaster for me. On my 5D2's I have the set button set to start video recording, regardless of what else the camera is doing. It seems like the 7D can't be used like that. It gets worse though: it also seems like there is no way to start liveview except with the liveview/video button. If you regularly shoot stills, AND use liveview, AND shoot video, this is going to drive you mad as you will forever be flipping the switch between the two modes, or checking whether you need to. I don't understand how the interface geniuses at Canon have managed to add an extra button, AND an extra switch, and end up with a less ready camera. Perhaps someone can enlighten me where I'm going wrong.
- another deal breaker for me is this: you can't shoot video with flash, so that means you want bright glass, especially for that nice cinematic narrow d.o.f. look. But you also can't turn video on its side, generally, so for video you need somewhat wider focal lengths than for stills. What's more, the best way of avoiding that horrible shaky home video look is to shoot with a wideangle lens, as wideangles dramatically reduce the effect of shaky hands and movement on video. On the 5D2 the 24 f1.4 is a perfect balance of brightness and wideangle, making it the killer video lens. The 1.6 crop spoils all that. This camera is much more limited for shooting video handheld in low light, and considering that it is only GBP 150 cheaper than a 5D2 at my local dealer, for anyone contemplating a combined stills and video camera, I think the 5D2 is a far far better deal. I know that is not an issue for most people here, so please don't jump in with the "I don't shoot video because I am FM stills elite", I just think it's an important distinction between the two formats for those who do use the video feature.
The 1.3 crop 16Mpixel 1D4 with 7D AF on steroids should be announced by the 27th October, so that will probably set a new bar for combined AF and video cameras, but if you never need to be able to focus an f2 or f1.4 lens manually, the 7D looks great.
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| Oct 07, 2009 at 09:51 AM |
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